Category: Theology

Pray for the Church in Lebanon

Here is an important blog post from the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Beirut, Lebanon.  There is a lot going on there, as you may have heard.

This was my comment:

As an American Christian with roots in Jordan, I want to say AMEN to Nabil Habiby’s wise counsel.  Jesus is the LORD of Lords, the KING of kings.  Therefore there is no escaping the political implications of the Gospel.  Moreover, the primary political significance of the Gospel is what happens when the governor repents of his sins and gives honor to the One to whom honor is due: then there is political freedom!  How then can the church neglect her prophetic role in society?

The American church is praying for you.  Courage, my brothers and sisters!  God is with us!

Thomas Alderman

Christopher Hitchens on God’s Wastefulness

In his April 2009 debate with William Lane Craig (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tYm41hb48o), Christopher Hitchens presented a long string of arguments which I regard as irrelevant to the question which those gentlemen were actually debating, which is whether or not God exists.  In this post I’ll discuss one example.  Following is a close paraphrase of what Hitchens said.

You are free to believe that this creator put himself to the trouble of creating all these species, 99.9% of all of which have become extinct – as we nearly did ourselves.

We are supposed to believe that all this mass extinction and death is the will of God – all done with us in view.  That’s solipsism.  [Solipsism: 1. The theory that only the self exists or can be proved to exist; or 2. Preoccupation with and indulgence of one’s feelings, desires, etc.; egoistic self-absorption.  (Dictionary.com.)]

The wastefulness, cruelty, and incompetence of it!  It doesn’t work for him.  Believe it if you can or if you like.

We’ve heard this argument before, from Darwin himself and ever since, so the question may deserve some consideration.

The existence of waste in nature is irrelevant to God’s existence or non-existence.  The question for debate was not whether a wasteful creator exists, but any creator.  Supposing, for the sake of the argument, that what Hitchens sees as waste is indeed waste, if the waste itself could not exist without God, then the fact of waste in nature would not diminish by one iota the probability that God exists.

And that is our case.  Given that anything at all exists – say, the universe, for example, with all its waste – then an eternal cause of the universe must also exist necessarily; for otherwise one must posit either an eternal universe (which we know is not the case), a universe that caused itself to exist (which is absurd), a universe which came into existence without a cause (which is implausible), or an infinite regress of prior finite causes (which is absurd).

Those four alternatives to theism are exhaustive: there are no other alternatives.  All of them being clearly false, theism must therefore be true – despite waste in nature (if that’s what it is).

Besides, as Craig points out elsewhere, a lack of economy would not be the same for a being who has infinite resources as it might be for Mr. Hitchens.

Finally, if God exists and was wasteful and Mr. Hitchens doesn’t understand why, then the fault is probably with Mr. Hitchens’ understanding and not with God, because, well, He’s God!  If He exists, He can be profligate if He wants to!

 

Professor, Was Jesus Really Born to a Virgin?

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff interviews William Lane Craig of Talbot School of Theology and Houston Baptist University, asking about Jesus’ miraculous conception and birth.  The interview was published in the Times on December 21, 2018.  Click here.  Enjoy!

Click here to read Dr. Craig’s replies to detractors commenting on the interview.  Very much worth reading!  Happy New Year!

 

 

 

Lennox on Divine Aseity and the Trinity

John Lennox is another of my favorite Christian apologists.  He is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College, Oxford University.

In this 2011 film clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIknACeeS0g), which is just over 10 minutes long, Dr. Lennox discusses the question, If God created the universe, then who created God? and the question, How can God be a triunity?

Lennox tells of an occasion on which he addressed a convention of scientists.  Afterward, a member of the audience approached him and asked whether it was possible that Lennox should actually subscribe to such an irrational doctrine as that of the Trinity.  Instead of answering immediately, Lennox asked him a question of his own.

Do you believe in consciousness?  Energy?  (Yes.)  Do you know what they are?  (No.)  Should I write you off as an intellectual for believing in something you don’t understand?  (No.)  That’s what you were going to do to me five minutes ago.  Why do you believe in them?  (Lennox supplies the answer:) Because of their explanatory power.  A trinity is the only explanation that makes sense of the evidence as Lennox sees it.  God Himself is a fellowship.

What is it that a divine fellowship explains?  Many things, I’m sure; but perhaps principally it answers the question, How can God be love, if in eternity past, prior to creation, there was no one around for Him to love?  The doctrine of the Trinity explains that God has never been alone, but that each Person of the Trinity has eternally been in the most intimate fellowship with the other two Persons.  Thus, the doctrine of the Trinity explains how it is that God is love.

Do yourself a favor and introduce yourself to this wonderful man.  For further reading, see God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (Lion 2009) and God and Stephen Hawking: Whose Design is it Anyway? (Lion 2011).

The Author of the Gospel of Luke is “a historian of the first rank”

[The following is an excerpt from “The Evidence for Jesus,” by William Lane Craig (https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/jesus-of-nazareth/the-evidence-for-jesus/).  (Citations deleted).]

The Gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability. . . .  I only have time to look at one example: Luke. Luke was the author of a two-part work: the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.  These are really one work and are separated in our Bibles only because the church grouped the gospels together in the New Testament.  Luke is the gospel writer who writes most self-consciously as an historian.  In the preface to this work he writes:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed. (Lk. 1.1-4)

This preface is written in classical Greek terminology such as was used by Greek historians; after this Luke switches to a more common Greek.  But he has put his reader on alert that he can write, should he wish to, like the learned historian.  He speaks of his lengthy investigation of the story he’s about to tell and assures us that it is based on eyewitness information and is accordingly the truth.

Now who was this author we call Luke?  He was clearly not an eyewitness to Jesus’s life.  But we discover an important fact about him from the book of Acts.  Beginning in the sixteenth chapter of Acts, when Paul reaches Troas in modern-day Turkey, the author suddenly starts using the first-person plural: “we set sail from Troas to Samothrace,” “we remained in Philippi some days,” “as we were going to the place of prayer,” etc.  The most obvious explanation is that the author had joined Paul on his evangelistic tour of the Mediterranean cities.  In chapter 21 he accompanies Paul back to Palestine and finally to Jerusalem.  What this means is that the author of Luke-Acts was in fact in first hand contact with the eyewitnesses of Jesus’s life and ministry in Jerusalem. . . .

Was the author reliable in getting the facts straight?  The book of Acts enables us to answer that question decisively.  The book of Acts overlaps significantly with secular history of the ancient world, and the historical accuracy of Acts is indisputable.  This has recently been demonstrated anew by Colin Hemer, a classical scholar who turned to New Testament studies, in his book The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (1990).  Hemer goes through the book of Acts with a fine-toothed comb, pulling out a wealth of historical knowledge, ranging from what would have been common knowledge down to details which only a local person would know.  Again and again Luke’s accuracy is demonstrated: from the sailings of the Alexandrian corn fleet to the coastal terrain of the Mediterranean islands to the peculiar titles of local officials, Luke gets it right.  According to Professor Sherwin-White, “For Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. Any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd.”  The judgement of Sir William Ramsay, the world-famous archaeologist, still stands: “Luke is a historian of the first rank. . . .   This author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.”  Given Luke’s care and demonstrated reliability as well as his contact with eyewitnesses within the first generation after the events, this author is trustworthy.

The Jewish Prophets

When we took up residence in the Middle East, one of my goals was to understand how Arab Christians viewed their relationship with Israel.  I am happy to be able to say that I succeeded: Arab Christians are very critical of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and they are deeply frustrated by what they see as American evangelicals’ unquestioning support of Israel’s actions there.  They believe that it is at least in part due to that support that the United States has not pressed Israel to reach a settlement with the Palestinians or even to suspend its settlement activity in the West Bank.

I think that generally, Arab Christians are loathe to speak of the ways in which Palestinians also contribute to the impasse in Israeli-Palestinian relations.  But it is clearly Israel which dominates the power relationship with the Palestinians, and it grieves me most of all that the Israel I love refuses to do justice toward them.  I want to bring to your attention an excellent sermon by Hikmat Kashouh, Research Professor of New Testament and Biblical Interpretation at Arab Baptist Theological Seminary and Senior Pastor at Resurrection Church in Beirut.  Dr. Kashouh shows how the Jewish prophets themselves denounced in ancient Israel the very practices in which the modern Israeli state is engaged today, and warns of the potentially disastrous consequences.  To hear and/or read the sermon, click here.

Book Review: Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

In 2010 and 2011 I was a student in Biola University’s master’s degree program in Science and Religion.  I benefitted greatly.  In the course of my studies I was required to produce an extensive catalog of essays on interesting topics.  It’s my intention to publish the best of them here from time to time.  This is the first of that series.  I hope you enjoy it.  Click here.

“The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus” by Gary Habermas & Michael Licona.

This is FREE at Amazon for Kindle!  (February 22, 2016 update: No, it’s not free, it costs about $14.  But I didn’t lie, it really was free when I downloaded it.  I don’t know what happened.  But it’s still worth the price.)

Habermas is regarded by many as the world’s foremost authority on the Resurrection, and Licona is the author of the definitive The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Nottingham, England: IVP Academic 2010).

Listen, please: if you want to know the truth and can read, then read this: (click here.)

The Catholic Church at Year Zero

Three days ago Ross Douthat, a columnist for the New York Times, published an excellent essay concerning the debate among Catholics on the permissibility of the admission to communion of Catholics who have remarried without the formal church annulment of a previous marriage.  Please have a look at his essay here, and if you are so inclined, see my comment here.